


The Dangerous Summer

by Lauralot



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Absurd Super Villain Motivations, Cats, Crack, Fluff, Gen, Literary References & Allusions, Ridiculous, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-02 23:18:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4077553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauralot/pseuds/Lauralot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Natasha badly need some rest and relaxation.</p><p>They find six-toed cats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dangerous Summer

**Author's Note:**

> With apologies to Ernest Hemingway.
> 
> As an explanation for this absurdity: In [osprey_archer's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer) brilliant [Reciprocity](http://archiveofourown.org/series/161309) series, my OC [Isaac Murphy](http://archiveofourown.org/tags/Isaac%20Murphy) is listed as one of the released former HYDRA agents. As he loves cats, someone then asked if he could set up with a job at the Hemingway House. That seemed adorable but too high profile for a former HYDRA member, so I invented a Steve and Natasha vacation AU in which Murphy was never in HYDRA to begin with.

“What’s your favorite Hemingway novel, anyway?” Natasha asks.  


Steve shrugs.  They’re in Key West, wandering along the grounds of the Ernest Hemingway House.  Nat had insisted he take a break from the search for Bucky before he gave himself a stress-induced breakdown.  And when that had failed, she took all his research on the Winter Soldier hostage until he got in the car.

“Honestly?” Steve says.  “I started reading _The Sun Also Rises_  in high school, but I couldn’t get through it.  His prose just wasn’t for me.  I haven’t tried since.”  


“Captain America hasn’t read one of his country’s most famous authors.”  Natasha lets her mouth hang open in exaggerated shock before she giggles.  “How are you not crucified in your interviews?”  


“People are more interested in my opinions on welfare and gay marriage than literature, I guess.”  He ducks slightly to avoid a low-hanging branch.  “What’s yours?”  


“I prefer Pasternak and Nabokov to the Lost Generation,” Natasha admits.  


Steve shakes his head.  “So I’ve never read Hemingway and you don’t like him.  What are we doing at his house?”

“Enjoying the atmosphere.”  Her eyes focus on something down the path.  “And the company.”  


There’s a calico cat on the path, meandering toward them.  There’s something odd about its gait, but Steve can’t tell what it is until the cat comes closer.  Its paws are overlarge and look as if— 

“Is that cat wearing mittens?” he asks.  


“Who puts mittens on a cat?”  Natasha bends down, beckoning the calico closer.  “And what kind of cat would wear them?”  


But the cat clearly has thumbs.  Which, the last Steve checked, cats do not have in any century.

The cat ambles to them, leaving white hairs on Natasha’s boots as it rubs against her.  Steve takes the opportunity to examine the cat’s feet up close, which it doesn’t seem to mind.  “It’s got six toes!”

“She’s a polydactyl cat,” says someone behind them.  


Steve turns to find a man on the path, the badge on his shirt marking him as an employee of the house.  The cat rushes toward him, and Steve can hear her purring.  He seems to be in his mid-twenties with black hair about the same length that Bucky’s was when HYDRA had him, and just enough facial hair to form a mustache and a beard along his jaw.

The man scoops the cat into his arms where she happily settles, walking back toward them.  “Polydactyls,” he explains, “are cats with more than eighteen toes.  This girl’s got twenty-two, one extra on each foot.  There are about fifty cats with six or seven toes on their feet on the grounds.  Mr. Hemingway had a six-toed cat, you see, named Snow White.  The cat was a gift from a ship captain, Stanley Dexter.  Polydactyl cats were considered good luck on boats.  And because this is a small island, and you don’t need two polydactyls to make more, well, we ended up with a lot of them in the gene pool.  I’d offer you a hand, but they’re full of cat.  Isaac Murphy.”

“Chris,” Steve says, the code name sliding from his lips easily.  


“Scarlett.”  Natasha speaks just as smoothly.  “So are you a tour guide or a vet?”  


“Oh.  Uh.  Neither.”  Murphy flushes and the cat gently hops down from his arms.  “We do have a vet on staff for vaccinations, yearly exams, deworming, that sort of thing.  But I just make sure the cats are fed and happy and not in need of medical attention.”  


The calico is bumping up against Murphy’s legs, and as he reaches down to pet her, another polydactyl, a black one this time, comes out from under a bush to meow at him.  Steve can spot a large tabby waddling over in the distance.

“Do you keep catnip in your pockets?”  


Murphy laughs, carefully stepping around the cats.  “No, they’re just used to people.  All the traffic through here—they learn pretty quick that affectionate cats get things from tourists.  And they know which familiar faces they can get cat treats from.”  He reaches into his pocket and the black cat rears up, front legs tucked up in front of it like a dog begging for a bone.

“Here you go,” Murphy says, dropping a few treats before the cats.  “So, you two big Hemingway fans?”  


“Uh,” Steve says.  “We’re really just in—”

“The area?  Yeah, a lot of our guests are.  Or some of them are just here for the cats.  A couple weeks ago one of tabbies had a litter of kittens.  They’re old enough to be seen without their mama attacking anybody now, and one of them’s got twenty-six toes, if you’d like a look.”  


“That sounds great.”  Natasha smiles.  “But we have a lunch date, so we should probably get going—”  


A tree to her right explodes into splinters.

Natasha ducks down, shielding her head and neck with her arms.  Steve follows suit, though his hand briefly darts back to grab a shield that’s not there.  Murphy’s knocked off his feet, and the cats are running.

Ears ringing, Steve scrambles up into a defensive stance as he surveys the situation.

There’s a man, about six foot, in full riot gear, marching toward them.  He’s carrying what looks to be a homemade, handheld cannon.

On the ground, Murphy moans.

The man shouts something incomprehensible.

“What?” Natasha yells.  


He lifts the face shield on his helmet.  “Death to pretension!” he screams.  “No more will our culture be forced to praise prose as bland and insubstantial as wallpaper paste!  No more will the world preach that short, declarative sentences are the proper method of storytelling!”

Steve had been planning a method of subduing the man, but he stops dead.  “What the hell are you talking about?”  


“I’m talking about Ernest Hemingway, the great false messiah of American literature!”  The cannon fires a second time and, behind Steve and Natasha, a part of the stone pathway explodes.  “The only thing drier than his prose was his blackened, uninspired heart, and today he will pay!”  


“Hemingway’s dead!” Natasha shouts.  Steve can’t move.  This cannot be his life.  He refuses.  


“Silence!  As long as this building still stands as a monument to your corrupt idol, no one can truly be free!  Today, I strike a blow for freedom.  For true art!”  


Steve just gapes.  “You’ll kill everyone inside for ‘true art’?”

“They’ve brought it on themselves, twisting their minds with his iniquities!  And you will be cleansed as well!  Only once the earth is rid of those who pass their perversions and inanities off as real art will we be—“  


And then a small but thick tree limb slams against his face, knocking him back.

“Pretentious hack!” Murphy screams.  He’s standing shakily, splinters of wood sticking out of his clothes and face.  His hands are gripping the tree branch, white-knuckled, and he kicks out, the toe of his shoe catching the face shield and knocking the whole helmet off.  “Hemingway’s work may be highly problematic, but his impact on literature can’t be understated!  If he were here now, he’d have reduced your ridiculous, overwrought speech to two sentences at most, and he’d have made the point both more clearly and emotionally!  He was a genius who could tell a full story in just six words!  For sale!”  


Murphy swings the branch down but misses and strikes the man’s forearm.

“Baby shoes!”  


Another swing.  This one glances the man’s shoulder and he howls, curling in on himself.  Murphy’s third blow connects with his skull, knocking him out cold.

“Never worn.”  Panting, Murphy drops the tree limb.  


“Isaac!” Steve rushes forward.  “Are you okay?”  


Murphy nods, but his eyes flutter and he sways like he might faint.  “Could one of you call the police?”

“On it.”  Natasha has her phone out, dialing.  


“You should sit.”  Steve doesn’t touch Murphy, not wanting to drive any of the splinters further in, but his hands hover around him in case he does lose consciousness after all.  “Or lie down.  We’ll get you an ambulance.”  


“No!”  His cry is so sudden and loud that both Steve and Natasha flinch.  


“No,” Murphy says, calmer this time.  “I have to make sure the cats are okay.”  


“There are other employees to—“  


“Wherever there’s a cat in danger, I’ll be there.”  Murphy stands a little taller, still swaying.  “Wherever there are hungry kittens, I’ll be there.  Wherever cats are traumatized by lunatics with delusions of grandeur, I’ll be—Wait, I’m quoting Steinbeck, aren’t I?  That’s not Hemingway at all.”  


Steve can only turn to face Natasha.   _Make sure they bring an ambulance,_  he mouths, and Natasha nods.

Steve is never going on a vacation again.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this fic is also the title of one of Hemingway's nonfiction books.
> 
> The Hemingway House really is full of [polydactyl cats.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polydactyl_cat)
> 
> Check me out on [Tumblr](http://lauralot89.tumblr.com/), if you like.


End file.
